Gregor Schneider’s project for the Magazin of the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden engages the audience in the disturbing experience of uncertainty. Its title, 7–8:30 PM, 05.31.2007, refers to the exact time frame of an event, an occurrence whose nature remains unknown. Through subtle interventions Schneider creates awareness of fundamental questions with regard to space and public and puts spectator’s heightened sensations, memories, and fears at the center of their experience. Schneider’s project is the first presentation of the international renowned artist in Berlin after 13 years and his first work within the context of theater.

While Schneider’s performance is reminiscent of the history of performance art’s “durational time,” he places 7–8:30 PM 31.05.2007 within the acute context of contemporary art. How can one organize a mass of people in a space with the simplest of means? This was the question that triggered the process in Gregor Schneider’s mind when he began to conceive the organization of the project for the Magazin der Staatsoper. Or is this a case – as Boris Groys proclaims in his description of the installation – of architecture itself becoming art? How close – also in Schneider’s oeuvre in general – are the topoi of the traditionally separated concepts of Installation and Performance? Which roles are taken on by the public, the spectator, or the agent? Is the position of the spectator the essence of the spectacle? How does the “composition” – that is, the arrangement of the public – appear, especially in consideration of the architectural frame of the Magazin building itself? Which bodily and psychic experiences are being manipulated and reanimated within the controlled “Situationist” setting of 7–8:30 PM 31.05.2007?

What do 800 people expect from the artist Schneider, who is often cited as “the most uncanny artist of the contemporary”? In the expectation of a “Schneider experience,” what are they prepared to let themselves get involved with? Can the public be left alone? Can a radical aberration of the expected redemption be aesthetically received? With its much-publicized Grand Tour, is this art-summer 2007 the manifestation of a perpetual classification, expectation, participation, that distinguishes the distingué from the arriviste, the privileged from the rank and file? “ In the Magazin, those waiting are waiting exclusively for the Magazin. Ergo, those waiting in line become the event itself. Quite simply, Schneider has constructed a space with people.” (Holger Liebs, Süddeutsche Zeitung)
from Daniela Zyman: Killing Time, in: Gregor Schneider. 7–8:30 PM 05.31.2007 (Walther König: Köln 2007)